Quotes of the day

posted at 10:31 pm on January 13, 2014 by Allahpundit

The chairman of a New Jersey legislative panel investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closures said Gov. Chris Christie’s top aides had engaged in a “cover-up” and the governor could be impeached if it is determined he was aware of efforts to use the bridge for political purposes.

“Using the George Washington Bridge, a public resource, to exact a political vendetta, is a crime,” New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who is spearheading the bridge probe, told NBC News on Saturday. “Having people use their official position to have a political game is a crime. So if those tie back to the governor in any way, it clearly becomes an impeachable offense.”

***

As Rich pointed out below, this morning’s political talk shows were amazingly obsessed with the news that some of Chris Christie’s top aides appear to have been involved in causing a serious traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge, between New York and New Jersey. It was indeed something of a slow news week, but the past seven days saw terrifying advances made by al-Qaeda in Iraq, the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty and Republican talk about how they’d like to address the problem, the release of an important account of how the Obama administration handled national security, and the death of one of the key figures in Israeli history. But with certain exceptions, you wouldn’t know it: As Rich said, the New Jersey scandal is a legitimate, important story, but the Sunday shows fell over themselves to offer incredibly comprehensive coverage of it and idle speculation about how it’ll affect a potential presidential candidate’s fate two or three years down the road…

Meet the Press: 33 minutes. After having on the mayor of Fort Lee (the town most affected by the traffic jam), airing a report from Iowa on the scandal’s impact, and suggesting that viewers weigh in on Meet the Press’s Facebook page (among other things), the NBC program’s roundtable finally, at 11:03 a.m. New York time, turned to discussing the release of Secretary of Defense Bob Gates’s explosive memoir. Thankfully, just eight minutes later, at 11:11, they returned to the Christie controversy.

This Week: 22 minutes. ABC’s Sunday program spoke with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani about the scandal, aired a report from New Jersey, had on Judy Smith, a crisis-management professional whose story has been turned into the cable-TV show Scandal, and even ran clips of late-night comedians cracking jokes at Christie’s expense. At 10:22 a.m., more than a third of the way through the program, stand-in host Martha Raddatz finally steered the conversation away from the traffic tiff, to discussing Bob Gates’s new book.

***

Christie’s style was always going to be problematic for him in the primaries, especially in the polite South. But now he also can be viewed as a victim not only of malignant, malicious and mind-bendingly stupid staffers but also of a two-faced, pro-Democratic media.

The media are not monolithic, as we like to remind people. But we do have a tendency to focus on the latest scandal. And it does seem that we tend to treat Republican scandals as more delicious than others. This is owing less to the sins committed than to the greater sin of hypocrisy. The higher the bar, the harder they fall.

But Christie isn’t a strong exhibit in the mean-media argument. More than a Republican, he is a colorful, larger-than-life character who speaks loudly and carries a big stick. Cameras will always find the most interesting landscape, and Christie has that turf covered. More to the salient point, as the leading Republican presidential candidate, he can hardly be ignored. Coverage of this fiasco isn’t disproportionate to the man, even if it may be to the event.

***

Journalists know the Obamans. Intimately. They know them from college, they know them from work, they know them from kids’ soccer. They’re literally married to them…

The journalists are not covering up for their friends and their spouses. They just believe the people they know could not be responsible for behaving badly, or cravenly, or for crass political advantage —and the tone they strike when such things are discussed is often one of offense, as though it is a sign of low character to believe otherwise. It would be, well, like believing the journalists themselves were crooks…

Christie may be entirely innocent of all wrongdoing. Or there may be some connection, even a very tenuous and suggestive one. But there will be little let-up now.

He does not have the committed ideological core that Ronald Reagan could rely on to overcome Iran-Contra. He does not have the Democratic base that stuck with Bill Clinton during his sex scandal because the excesses of a special prosecutor and then of a Republican House that impeached him came to enrage Democrats even more than Clinton’s misbehavior.

What of Christie’s base? Wall Street is fickle and pragmatic. The media can turn on a dime. And the Republican establishment, such as it is, has alternatives. Oh, yes, Christie also has support from some machine Democrats in New Jersey who have made deals with him. But they will be even more pragmatic than Wall Street…

Christie has one other obstacle, and this may be the most important. A great many conservatives never trusted him, and a tale that plays so perfectly into their critique of government could make things worse. Erick Erickson, the right-wing writer, captured this rather colorfully. People sometimes want a politician to be “a jerk,” Erickson wrote on Fox News’ Web site, but “they want the person to be their jerk,” not a jerk “who tries to make everyone else his whipping boy.”

To win Christie some sympathy on the right, defenders such as former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour quickly deployed the GOP’s first-responder technique of attacking “the liberal media.” But liberals are the least of Christie’s problems.

***

The end of Christie’s career would not be a good thing — for New Jersey, for the Republican party, for conservatism, or for the country. He is a valuable conservative, one of the most talented politicians in America. We are lucky to have him on our side — general side…

If you spend enough time in RightWorld, you may be led to believe that our enemies are John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, Karl Rove, Reince Priebus, and definitely anyone named Bush. I can’t tell you how nutso this seems to them (as to me). In the words of one of them, “I’ve been decried as a right-wing lunatic my entire life. And to be decried now as an establishment moderate is almost an out-of-body experience.”

Think for a second what it’s like to be George W. Bush. In the dominant liberal culture — the universities, Hollywood, the news media — you’re Attila the Hun, if not BusHitler. (Did I spell that right?) In RightWorld, you’re Elliot Richardson, at best…

[J]oining the media madness before Christie had a chance to defend himself was short-sighted…

Whether it was the false and defamatory supposed connection of Sarah Palin to the Gabby Giffords shooting, or the media frenzy over Mitt Romney’s (now vindicated) comments about Benghazi, there is no Republican immune from the media mob. Only Democrats are immune…

This is not about Chris Christie. It’s about any number of other Republican candidates who will be met with the same faux-outrage and media-led obsession a year from now as the 2016 field begins to define itself.

You cannot become one of them when you’re not one of them, and you can’t make them like you. Membership in that club, it’s really strict and unique, and you don’t get to admit yourself. Did they not see what happened with McCain? McCain was loved and adored until he becomes a candidate, then he becomes a dirty old man kicking kids off his front yard. So that’s what amazes me. What amazes me is after all of this, after that hour and a half press conference they thought a home run had been hit and they thought the media minds had been changed.

I’ll guarantee you, they’re sitting there stunned that this investigation is still underway and that the Feds are now involved, ’cause they thought that Christie had succeeded. They thought Christie knocked it out of the park, when it didn’t matter whether he knocked out of the park or not. This is the only guy beating Hillary in the polls, and they’re gonna go destroy this guy whatever it takes.

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

As far as this thing with Christie goes, it’s interesting that the media is digging for more “facts” on the story. Compare that to the IRS scandal, where the media has not conducted any of its own investigations. None.

January 12, 2014, 7:49 AM
|New Jersey state lawmaker John Wisniewski questions Gov. Chris Christie’s insistence that he knew nothing of his associates’ role in engineering a politically-motivated traffic jam.
========================================================

As far as this thing with Christie goes, it’s interesting that the media is digging for more “facts” on the story. Compare that to the IRS scandal, where the media has not conducted any of its own investigations. None.

jaime on January 13, 2014 at 10:42 PM

I think the media, Washington Republicans, Democrats, and other sundry Establishment figures were A-OK with the state putting down the TEA Party insurgents.

but the past seven days saw terrifying advances made by al-Qaeda in Iraq, the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty and Republican talk about how they’d like to address the problem, the release of an important account of how the Obama administration handled national security, and the death of one of the key figures in Israeli history.
==========================

· $6.7 billion for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), sufficient to meet expected need in 2014.

· $1.47 billion for Food for Peace (P.L.480) grants, which is $33 million more than the 2013 enacted level. The agreement retains Senate language increasing flexibility in managing the Food for Peace program that seeks to reduce the need for monetization.

· $215 million for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which is $10.1 million more than the 2013 enacted level.

· $2.55 billion for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is $96 million more than the 2013 enacted level.

· $1.1 billion for USDA Rental Assistance Program, which is $227 million more than the 2013 enacted level.

· $1.01 billion for the USDA food safety and inspection program, which is $17 million less than the 2013 enacted level but $24 million more than the post-sequester level.

Does anyone else get the impression that the journalists are trying to keep this story alive for a few more weeks so they can get assigned to cover the Super Bowl?

Live from the MetLife Stadium: How will this “scandal” affect the Super Bowl? Will the Christie administration try to create a traffic jam to prevent the Seahawks from arriving on time? We’ll be here on the sidelines with the latest.

four out of the last five QotD’s…
a fat man eating a donut…and this is news??..
I expect the LSM to cover this a ton..but
HA never covered the IRS story(or any other) 4 out of 5 days in a row..
the IRS touches all Americans.
a fat man eating a donut…not so much

What’s most telling is to compare the numbers now with spending levels six years ago for fiscal 2008 — the last full budget cycle under Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush.
Total discretionary spending for 2008 was $1.176 trillion, more than half of which, or $642.1 billion, was designated for the Pentagon and military operations — in Iraq then as well as Afghanistan.
That left $534.4 billion among the 11 other appropriations bills, almost exactly what will be the case now in the 2014 omnibus. The big difference is inflation. And when the Bush dollars are adjusted upward to reflect changes in the cost-of-living since 2008, it shows that Obama will be left with about 10 percent, or $53 billion, less than his predecessor.

I shouldn’t have read the doper thread first. Bad mood. Need to shake it off.

If only RWM would appear I could blame him for sumpin and let RWM call be a progtard. I would do that for you pikers.

SparkPlug on January 13, 2014 at 10:58 PM

She would. :) She defended me from your shenanigans. She was the only one who ever defended me from your shenanigans.

No one misses RWM more than me, and this comment isn’t directed toward anyone in particular — really. I just wish sometimes more people would try to up their game toward hers instead of lamenting the fact that she’s not here. I wish she were more of an example than a babysitter.

No one misses RWM more than me, and this comment isn’t directed toward anyone in particular — really. I just wish sometimes more people would try to up their game toward hers instead of lamenting the fact that she’s not here. I wish she were more of an example than a babysitter.

bluegill here. Everyone over at hotair.com wants to know where you’ve been. Can you please stop by and drop a note in the QOTD section to let us know you’re alive and kicking. We’ve missed your comments.”

When the wheels of Scott Schieffer’s airplane touched the ground at his destination, something didn’t seem right.

“We landed very abruptly with the pilot applying the brakes very hard. We smelled burnt rubber from the stop,” he told me privately over Twitter.

The flight, Southwest Airlines LUV +1.3% 4013, which left from Chicago’s Midway airport this afternoon was originally scheduled to fly to Dallas with a stop in Branson, Missouri (BKG) but instead, the aircraft touched down at Taney County Airport (PLK), 8.6 miles away from its intermediate stop. According to airportguide.com, PLK’s runway is about half the length of BKG’s at 3738 feet versus 7140 feet.

Mr. Scheiffer, a Dallas tax attorney and CPA reported that that crew and passengers remained calm and professional during the erroneous landing, saying “The flight attendants are now passing out peanuts liberally. Everyone is in good spirits, but we haven’t heard anything from the pilot,” adding “the pilot keeps repeating, ‘we apologize for the inconvenience.’”
Only after unloading the plane, did Mr. Scheiffer notice the gravity of the situation, noting “we have all deplaned from @SouthwestAir 4013, and the mood is somber now that we realized we were 40 feet from the edge of a cliff.”
(More..)
=========

bluegill here. Everyone over at hotair.com wants to know where you’ve been. Can you please stop by and drop a note in the QOTD section to let us know you’re alive and kicking. We’ve missed your comments.”

Haha. I already got game. It’s the other pikers who need to up their game ( Ken for example) and try to be more obsequious (Twerp for example to single out one person) . And furthermore if people ( cozmo in particular) would try to use bigger words and spell them correctly it would help.

I don’t mean it as a personal insult, certainly not toward anyone expressing the feeling that they miss Sophie. Which I’ll be doing here in a minute, like I always do. Talk about glass houses.

The accumulation of comments about wishing she was here to explain this or that, or handle this or that troll, I’ve been thinking of. Hot Air was the place to be before Resist We Much walked in. That’s the reason she walked in; she’s a winner. There are other people that can speak intelligently about the law, and other things, and did. Where’d they go? Maybe it’s just the off season blues. I can count up maybe half a dozen power-posters still in the gate at the moment.

Her absence is absolutely felt, but I’m not sure it should be. At least, not like this.

sorry … I love ya axe .. but that’s a tad harsh…
no matter how much up’ping us ‘pikers’ do to our games
we will never be anywhere near as wonderful as RMW…
she thinks and writes with great care and purpose..
says many things we might have a thought, so much better than we ever could..
fantastic humor and wit.. and still with facts and logic..
we admire her greatly…
and respect her knowledge and organized thoughts…
a treasure….to all at HA..
I know you miss her most ..I understand that part..
but asking us to stop being concerned or to stop caring….is harsh…

I emailed her once, weeks/months ago, to aid her in aiding another commenter, and she did respond and was thereby able to aid the other commenter whose email she must have indicated she had in a comment of hers at the time, otherwise I wouldn’t have figured she could help the other commenter out with what I had. But I used an anonymous throw away email and don’t remember it’s name to see what email of hers I sent to, nor the email name of hers I used to email her at, but I suppose it was the one on her blog unless she had put another in a comment. She did email back within tens of minutes back then. The person she helped out would have to have her email unless she emailed that commenter through an anonymous email, but then that commenter would still have it but just not know it.

What the media has done to Christie pales in comparison to what is did to Sarah Palin or dozens of other Republicans in the past 30 years.

Christie relished attacking conservatives and was content teaming with the media in these attacks. he never thought the media would turn on him, but it did.

What Christie’s subordinates did (assuming he had no knowledge of it) was as stupid as what Nixon’s subordinates did at Watergate. Nixon had the 1972 election in the bag running against McGovern. There was no way Christie could have lost last November. Both men’s supporters took unnecessary chances and their actions backfired.

Given Christie’s contempt for conservatives, I have a hard time working up any sympathy for him.

I emailed her once, weeks/months ago, to aid her in aiding another commenter, and she did respond and was thereby able to aid the other commenter whose email she must have indicated she had in a comment of hers at the time, otherwise I wouldn’t have figured she could help the other commenter out with what I had. But I used an anonymous throw away email and don’t remember it’s name to see what email of hers I sent to, nor the email name of hers I used to email her at, but I suppose it was the one on her blog unless she had put another in a comment. She did email back within tens of minutes back then. The person she helped out would have to have her email unless she emailed that commenter through an anonymous email, but then that commenter would still have it but just not know it.

Loretta Fuddy named as the only victim the crash of a Cessna Grand Caravan carrying eight others
Fuddy entered the national spotlight briefly after allowing the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate
Officials said Thursday that engine failure was to blame for the crash

RWM pops up on the NSA radar screen for making Obama look like the clown he is. A special unit is sent out the silence her because Obama really is a freaking clown with a bag of jaxkazzery and constitutional abuses.